Growing up, Dr Ásványi was surrounded by education. Her parents were both teachers, and their careers inspired her. She desperately wanted to follow in their footsteps. Like them, she saw the value in helping students to develop and progress.

She pursued an MSc in Business Administration and Management at Corvinus, studying economics, followed by a PhD in the same subject. “But it wasn’t the research side of the PhD that motivated me, it was the teaching,” she admits.

In lots of ways, Dr Ásványi has already achieved her goal. In the last 10 years, she has taught for more than 2,500 hours. “But you can be a lecturer without truly being a teacher. For me, the real joy has always come from guiding, inspiring and witnessing the personal growth of students beyond the classroom.”

While Dr Ásványi always knew she wanted to teach, her path to sustainability was more fortuitous.

Her PhD’s original thesis focused on ways for orchestras to finance themselves. But a change in supervisors meant that she was working with “a big name in Hungary” who specialised in sustainable economics. It was this supervisor who encouraged her to incorporate a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) angle into the thesis, and essentially changed her entire career trajectory.

Now, Dr Ásványi has worked at Corvinus University of Budapest for nearly 19 years, during which her career has changed drastically. After her PhD, she started teaching environmental economics and tourism. After organisational changes, she was transferred to the Marketing Institution, becoming a programme leader, where she taught a course on CSR to marketing students.

“It was really inspiring to teach marketing students. As a programme leader, I not only taught them, but cared about them,” she says. “I loved speaking to my students and seeing their talents develop.”

Dr Ásványi’s passion and drive for both teaching and her subject encouraged many of her marketing students to place a greater focus on sustainability, leading them to write about the CSR aspects of marketing for their thesis.

It was clear to Dr Ásványi that she had the ability to inspire and create positive change among her students.

As the university continued to restructure, her role continued to evolve. The university created a separate institute dedicated to sustainable development, and Dr Ásványi was asked to serve as Head of the Department of Sustainability Management and Environmental Economics.

“It wasn’t a question of whether I would move. I enjoyed teaching marketing students, but [in this new role] I could teach students coming from lots of different programmes,” she explains.

When the ERS (Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability) Hub Steering Committee was developed at the business school, it was a chance to confront sustainability at an institutional level. Dr Ásványi became its Chair, playing a key role in developing the university’s renewed sustainability strategy. “I learnt how we can engage the community to deal with sustainability,” she reveals.

This year, she was the natural choice for the new role as the Dean of Sustainability. Her aim in this role is to continue the hub’s work, but take it to a different level. “Sustainability has been given an important and transversal role in our university’s new strategy,” she says.

The key here is effective communication, Dr Ásványi tells QS Insights. “If you just say you want people to be more sustainable, they won’t do it, but if you speak with them, communicate with them, and show them that they are doing it already, they are more likely to want to know what else they can do to be more sustainable.”

It’s this continued community engagement that was a big driver to embed sustainability throughout the programmes.

Educating about sustainability

“We don’t want any graduate to leave Corvinus without knowing about sustainability,” states Dr Ásványi. “It’s our duty to educate them about this so they can become responsible leaders.”

But teaching every student about sustainability is a huge task: one she estimates will take three to four years.

To make it possible, it was split into two parts and broken down into achievable steps.

Changing the curriculum

Starting with redesigning the curriculum, the goal for year one was to integrate one sustainability course into every bachelor’s programme.

Dr Ásványi recognised there was already a Global Sustainability Challenges course in the Business and Management Bachelor’s programme, which was very popular among students. During the course, students completed a set of sustainability-related challenges, logged their progress and reflected on their experiences. The completion of the challenges was then assessed.

As this course was such a success already, Dr Ásványi and her team thought it would be a good module to integrate across different Bachelor’s programmes, as a grounding for the curriculum.

“First, the students must gain the sustainability knowledge. Then we can build on this in different topics and disciplines,” she explains.

During these challenges, students often work directly with local communities. For example, the students once visited a poor village in the countryside, which heavily relied on its charity shop. “Students can learn a lot from this community partner engagement. As future corporate leaders, they will learn how they can work with these types of businesses, not just by giving a donation, but by working directly with them,” Dr Ásványi explains.

“It’s not just about transferring knowledge,” she adds. “We want to shape mindsets, influence attitudes, and inspire behavioural change towards a more sustainable way of thinking and living.”

Meanwhile, the leadership team are mapping each of the other modules in the bachelor’s programmes to see how core modules can adopt an SDG focus. “For example, in a finance module, students can also learn about green finance,” advises Dr Ásványi.

To measure the success of these initiatives, the school has integrated TASK™ by Sulitest, an international online test to measure students’ understanding of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Students will complete this 80-minute test at the start of their studies and again at the end, to review how much they’ve learnt during their time at Corvinus. This will allow the team to compare against other schools, and monitor their progress.

But Master’s programmes present a different challenge – one that the team is still figuring out. As one- or two-year courses, there is less time to integrate sustainability elements. As with the undergraduate programmes, these Master’s programmes are in the process of being mapped to understand where sustainable elements can be naturally included or enhanced.

Eventually, Master’s students will have the opportunity to take part in an optional honours programme for extra credits, focusing on sustainable opportunities and projects. It’s still in the planning phase, but Dr Ásványi and her team are enthusiastic about developing it.

Teaching faculty

But the curriculum design is just one side. Equally important is ensuring the school’s faculty are comfortable and know what they are doing.

To address this, Corvinus plans to introduce a system where faculty members, much like students, will have their level of sustainability awareness assessed. Once their basic knowledge has been evaluated, they will receive training on the fundamentals of sustainability and explore ways to integrate these principles into their own courses.

The reaction so far has been overwhelmingly positive, Dr Ásványi tells QS Insights. “If you can inspire the programme leaders, you will win,” she says, with a smile.

While it’s important to integrate sustainability into the relevant courses, the key is having instructors who are genuinely committed. “If you do not believe in what you’re teaching, you won’t do it well,” she explains.

One of the most important parts of the process for her is to find faculty members who are truly inspired to teach about sustainability and are interested in it.

Research can play an important part here, too. Dr Ásványi’s research revolves around testing the impact of education on sustainability, using sustainability literacy tests and interviews to track students’ progress in mindset and behaviour.

Research like this can show faculty the very real, tangible benefits of helping students take meaningful steps toward sustainability and how it creates long-lasting changes. For example, due to learning about sustainability, Dr Ásványi’s research found that students are more likely to write their theses on it, choose ESG-related internships and even create long-term habits, such as avoiding fast fashion.

Inspiring students and faculty

“It’s great that the school has created this deanship, but you can’t do anything alone,” says Dr Ásványi. “For me, this is just one way to communicate and engage with people, and give them the support to be more open.”

She says her door is always open for anyone who would like to know more about sustainability, and she encourages other sustainability leaders to adopt the same approach.

As Corvinus integrates sustainability into every level of study, her new goal is to influence not just students, but the entire university community, ensuring that sustainability is integrated deeply throughout every aspect of the institution.

As Dean of Sustainability, Dr Ásványi is showing that lasting impact is created through connection and understanding.